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Welcome to “This Week In Crazy,” The National Memo’s weekly update on the wildest attacks, conspiracy theories, and other loony behavior from the increasingly unhinged right wing. Starting with number five

5. Glenn Beck

Right-wing author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza dodged prison time this week, when a federal judge sentenced him to five years of probation and a $30,000 fine for illegally using straw donors to violate campaign finance law in 2012.

By most accounts, D’Souza got off easy (he faced up to two years in jail). But as you may not be shocked to learn, Glenn Beck disagrees.

“I think a lot of it goes back to my understanding of the character of Obama,” D’Souza said.

“I don’t have to speculate that he doesn’t like me, I know that,” D’Souza continued, “and it’s hard for me to believe that [the government was] treating me normally, like any other guy who did this.”

Beck couldn’t agree more. According to him, D’Souza is a “political prisoner” — even though he completely dodged prison time.

“This is a political prisoner, make no mistake,” Beck lamented. “He was only prosecuted, they only found this stuff because they were going through everything to stop him. And it’s sick. It’s really sick”

4. Andrea Tantaros

Republicans were predictably pleased with the news that Attorney General Eric Holder plans to resign, but — with apologies to the always animated Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) — no response was as unhinged as that of Fox News host Andrea Tantaros.

During Thursday’s edition of Outnumbered, Tantaros said good riddance to “one of the most dangerous men in America.”

“He didn’t enforce the laws on Obamacare,” Tantaros raged. “He was droning terrorists without a trial while he was giving them trials in downtown Manhattan.”

That doesn’t make any sense, but Tantaros plowed right ahead.

“He ran the DOJ much like the Black Panthers would,” she declared. “That is a fact.”

Who knew that the Black Panther Party was so soft on Wall Street?

3. Jim Geraghty

For the past two weeks, the nation has wondered: How could NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell have botched his response to Ray Rice’s offseason assault on his then-fiancée so badly?

“Does our president just reflect a broad cultural trend in the behavior of leaders, or does he set the tone from the top?” Geraghty wrote on Monday.

He went on to cite the examples of Goodell, General Motors CEO Mary Barra (whose company recently recalled 2.6 million vehicles with faulty ignition switches that led to over a dozen deaths), NBC (which employed Chelsea Clinton, to Geraghty’s evident displeasure), and Freedom Industries (which caused an environmental crisis in the Elk River).

“These are all private-sector scandals, of course. Every administration and every era has its scandals. What our current moment seems to feature is a bumper crop of (alleged) leaders insisting they can wait out the storm, often displaying a glimpse of indignation at suggestions that they resign because something terrible happened on their watch. Somehow tapes of criminal behavior never reach the folks at the top, nor reports of a defect in ignition switches,” Geraghty wrote.

“Everybody’s got rogue low-level staffers in Cincinnati, it seems,” he added, in what would be a sweet burn if the IRS scandal actually existed in the form that Geraghty seems to think it does.

Just in case you still didn’t get the picture, Geraghty added this image to the bottom of the post, captioned “Leadership!”

According to Bachmann, Schlafly isn’t just the sexist matron of the conservative movement — she’s also responsible for the end of the Cold War!

“I believe that Phyllis Schlafly is the most consequential female woman [sic] in public policy in the last 50 years of the 20th century,” Bachmann gushed in an interview with WorldNetDaily.

“Had there not been a Phyllis Schlafly, I believe that we wouldn’t have seen a rise of the pro-family movement. Had there not been a rise of the pro-family movement, I don’t believe that there would have been a Ronald Reagan. Without a President Ronald Reagan, I don’t think we would have seen the ability to defeat the evil — and yes that’s what it was — Soviet empire and to bring a conclusion to the Cold War,” she continued. “Just as Ronald Reagan was consequential, Phyllis Schlafly was extremely consequential because she was a tee to tee up this president that we had.”

That’s right: If Phyllis Schlafly didn’t lead the charge to kill the Equal Rights Amendment, the Berlin Wall would still be standing.

Bachmann later added that “Phyllis Schlafly truly is the epitome of womanhood and she is a woman that every young girl can pattern their life after and should choose to emulate.” So if you avoid college, stay far away from “boys’ fields,” and generally hate on Hispanic people, maybe you, too, can grow up to earn Michele Bachmann’s respect.

Wiles shared the horrible truth during the Wednesday edition of his Trunews radio show. After calling the president “a very sick, little puppy, but a dangerous attack dog” and repeating his warning that Obama is “the ultimate jihadist,” Wiles recounted a terrifying story.

“I saw a small advertisement in the lower right-hand corner of the news website, it was the website of a big-name U.S. newspaper, the ad was sponsored by a store selling men’s clothing. The ad featured a typical 30-year-old white American male model in a dark blue business suit. So what was so shocking about the ad? Well the young man had a beard,” Wiles said.

“What’s so shocking about a beard on a young man?” he continued. “Nothing, except it wasn’t an American-style beard. “It was that long, scraggily, dirty-looking, flea-infested Islamic beard you see on jihadists. So who is conditioning the American people through advertising to accept the Islamic beard on American men?”

I think you can guess what’s coming next.

“Folks, this thing is coming down fast, we’re being taken over from the inside and the chief rat is in the White House,” Wiles warned.

So there you have it: President Obama is turning us into jihadists by forcing newspapers — using psy-ops, no doubt — to run fashion ads featuring men with flea-infested Islamic beards (not to be confused with patriotic Duck beards).

Of course, Wiles is facing some very D’Souza-like consequences for blowing the whistle.

“I just can’t figure out why somebody is breaking into our office and stationing cars and men on the street next to my office for hours each day,” Wiles mused. “Could it be something I said?”

Audio is below, via Right Wing Watch:

Check out previous editions of This Week In Crazy here. Think we missed something? Let us know in the comments!

With a deranged narcissist in the Oval Office and his lackey controlling the Department of Justice, there is no point in looking to the federal government to curb police violence. Instead, President Donald J. Trump will do everything in his power to encourage it. In the wake of protests over the murder of George Floyd, he has demanded that governors crack down on protestors: "You have to dominate. ... If you don't dominate, you're wasting your time," he told them.

Moreover, most local police authorities are under local control -- mayors, city councils, district attorneys, police chiefs, sheriffs. That's where the accountability for police misconduct begins.

<p>But Congress could take a significant step toward reining in that misconduct by passing a bill to end the practice of allowing the Pentagon to give surplus war equipment to local police departments. There is simply no good reason for police in any city -- from Washington to Wichita -- to roll down the streets in armored personnel carriers, armed with battering rams and grenade launchers. They are not going to war. American citizens are not enemy combatants.</p><p>Several Democrats have already announced their intention to introduce legislation to end the practice. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, has said he would introduce such a measure as an amendment to the all-important annual defense policy bill -- which would give it a decent shot at passing since Republicans are deeply invested in the defense bill.</p><script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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</script><p>After protests broke out in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer, local law enforcement authorities took to the streets in armored carriers, further inflaming tensions. They showed little inclination toward restraint or de-escalation. The same thing is occurring in cities around the country right now.</p><p>Off-loading surplus military hardware to local police departments was never a good idea. The practice started back during the 1990s as violent crime peaked and local and federal authorities were feverishly devoted to winning the so-called war on drugs. After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the program ramped up, doling out battlefield gear even to small towns no self-respecting terrorist ever heard of.</p><p>Law enforcement agents became enamored of images of themselves decked out like soldiers on special-ops missions. According to <em>The New York Times</em>, the website of a South Carolina sheriff's department featured its SWAT team "dressed in black with guns drawn, flanking an armored vehicle that looks like a tank and has a mounted .50-caliber gun."</p><p>Poor neighborhoods are subjected to the military-style hardware much more often than affluent ones. And the consequence of that sort of policing is often less safety, not more. When the police behave like an occupying force, the residents return the favor -- treating them with suspicion and contempt. That hardly makes it more likely that police will get the information they need to solve crimes.</p><p>The administration of President Barack Obama understood that and curbed the Pentagon program after Ferguson. In the final years of the Obama administration, the Pentagon reported that local law enforcement agencies had returned 126 tracked armored vehicles, 138 grenade launchers and 1,623 bayonets, the Times said. Pause for a moment just to consider that. Why would any police department -- even New York City's army of 36,000 officers -- need bayonets and grenade launchers? Once you implant in the heads of police officers the notion that they need battlefield gear, their use of violence against unarmed citizens escalates as a natural consequence.</p><script async="" src="//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js"></script>
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</script><p>But guess what happened when Trump took office? He removed Obama's restraints on the Pentagon program, once again allowing local law enforcement agents to go to battle against the citizens they are sworn to protect. No surprise there. In 2017, Trump gave a speech in which he urged police officers not to worry about injuring a suspect during an arrest.</p><p>Police violence against black people is a problem as old as the nation itself. It didn't start with Trump's presidency and won't end when it's over. Rather, the racist culture that is embedded among so many law enforcement agencies showed itself clearly when major police unions enthusiastically backed Trump's election. When Trump is finally gone, the campaign to eradicate that culture can begin in earnest.</p>